Conspiracy theory?
Wow! Jim Morin’s cartoon in today’s paper (7/17/12) basically said what I’ve been thinking: big business is not adding new jobs because they want Obama to fail.
Corporations which are mostly for the GOP, who they fund, are trying to keep the economy deflated in the hopes of defeating President Obama in November.
Conspiracy theory? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.
George Harris
Kansas City
10 months, 1 week agoI’m not inclined to this theory. I think business execs would hire people if they thought they needed them. But businesses are making do with fewer employees and are returning healthy profits. There isn’t demand for higher production to justify new employees. I also don’t think they’re holding back because of uncertainty. Business is always uncertain, and business is always a risk.
George Hunsucker
Northland
10 months, 1 week agoSo George, if I understand you, if business thought the future was rosy they would NOT be gearing-up to meet all this government created demand huh? THat’s not quite how I learned it in my MBA program, bit I am not a smart lib…. Face it, the big 0 has put the economy further in the crapper with all his administration’s anti business BS—
Ms Conway, don’t demean yourself with columns like this please….
Phil Cardarella
10 months, 1 week agoI suspect if there is any “conspiracy” it is with financial institutions holding on to the money needed to invest in anything creating jobs. They got our tax money bailouts with no strings requiring them to invest in jobs — so they aren’t.
Most actual businesses would hire if it were in their interest to do so. But, lax enforcement of wage & hour laws allow them to over-use overtime — and use 35 hour “part-time” employees instead of full timers. Tax law also could encourage hiring — if corporations and the wealthy had to either pay higher taxes or hire Americans. Right now their ACTUAL tax rates are so low that there is no room to provide incentives left.
No doubt there are some rightwingnuts so anti-Obama that they would cut off their own fingers to frustrate him, but that is a small part of the problem. The problem is that we are in a terrible recession — and after four decades of coddling the rich and corporate at the expense of labor do not have the tools to climb out.
George Hunsucker
Northland
10 months, 1 week agoDo people really pay for your advice Phil???
Mark Hastert
10 months, 1 week agoI have to disagree with this writer for the same reasons I disagree with conservatives who claim that uncertainty is the reason for not hiring.
Businesses hire to help them make more money. If they have more business they need more help. Any businessman who is afraid of uncertainty shouldn’t be in business. Any businessman who starves his business of human resources when needed for politics sake won’t be in business for long.
Kent Mueller
10 months, 1 week agoI am surprised that the issue of business risk is spoken about as if it is a yes or no situation. There degrees of business risk. Mark, its not about businesspeople being scared of risk, it is about them measuring the degree of risk and then saying, no thank you.
And I’m sorry Suzanne. To think businesses are not hiring to keep the economy in the dumpster to get rid of Obama is ludicrous. But then so is your statement that corporations are mostly for the GOP. Suzanne, are you aware Wall Street gave more money to Obama than to McCain?
Phil, if you know enough about enough businesses circumventing labor laws to be able to make that accusation, then why don’t you go after them? Go get ‘im, Phil. Sounds like a class action suit to me. That is if you know for sure enough to be able to make that accusation.
George Hunsucker
Northland
10 months, 1 week agoMaybe big Phil would do it probono to show his “progresssssssssssive” compassion-I bet not kent…
JR Beillenhouser
10 months, 1 week agoAnyone with any brains want him to fail. If he had good policies it would be different, but he does not. We already have one Greece, we don’t need another.
Mark Hastert
10 months, 1 week ago“We already have one Greece, we don’t need another.”
Read more here: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/conspiracy-theory/#storylink=cpy
I’d love to have one of you conservatives explain to us why you think the Greece, with an economy no bigger than that of Dallas,TX, is like the largest economy in the world.
Tell me too what rights we’ve lost in the past three years? I haven’t lost any. Explain to me how your greatest criticisms of Obama all center around conservative ideas. Your only opposition to these initiatives is that is Obama doing it and not a Republican.
You guys all need to read Kathleen Parker’s column in today’s Washington Post.
George Harris
Kansas City
10 months, 1 week agoGeorge, I’ve been self-employed for nearly 30 years with several small businesses. During the last two years I partnered with a dozen people, and we invested a pretty big chunk of money in a business. We were able to get financing (though we had to have a large down payment.) The business is doing fine. Our group never once talked about the perils of Obamacare or the uncertainty of the regulatory or tax rules. We thought we had a handle on these, within reason, and we thought the economy wouldn’t sink us. We’re doing fine. The uncertainty, and it remains to the present, is whether inflation will kick in, cause interest rates to rise and make our adjustable rate loan a problem. But these are the kinds of things all businesses have to consider. If other people want to say that the regulatory/tax environment has made them too skittish to invest, then ok, that’s their issue. It hasn’t bothered me at all, and I’m moving ahead, perhaps blindly, but so far it’s working out fine.
Kent Mueller
10 months, 1 week agoBack to Suzanne’s point. Sorry, Suzanne, no one here, including some very left leaning people agree with your premise.